Young children often have a difficult time learning and acquiring the skills associated with wearing footwear, especially shoes, sneakers and other footwear having laces. Namely, young children must learn relatively difficult tasks including how to put items of footwear on the proper foot, how to properly lace footwear, and how to tie the laces to form a single bowknot. Various reasons are extant for children's difficulties in mastering these tasks. One reason is the different rate, i.e., time frame, at which children acquire the various skills attendant to wearing footwear. For example, in order to properly orient conventional footwear for wearing, children must possess not only motor skills such as the eye-hand coordination needed to place an item of footwear on a foot, but also a sufficient degree of intellectual sophistication to be able to visually discriminate the subtle differences between a left item of footwear and a right item of footwear, and to understand the concepts of symmetry and directionality. Children acquire the necessary motor skills for putting on footwear much more rapidly than they acquire the necessary level of intellectual sophistication. The result is that, while being physically able to put on items of footwear, children frequently place the footwear on the wrong feet. This causes problems which both parents and the children would like to avoid. From the child's perspective, wearing his or her footwear on the wrong feet will be clumsy, embarrassing and uncomfortable. The parents' concerns are even more far-reaching, going to the growth and development of the child's foot and leg, as well as the development of proper walking form, balance, and other such skills.
Moreover, with the increasing popularity of "laceless" footwear such as footwear secured by Velcro fasteners, young children today are not learning the essential lacing and tying skills associated with wearing laced footwear as early as children had learned these skills in the past when such fasteners were not available. The complex tasks referred to above are relatively difficult for a young child to master and are often a source of frustration. Because of these difficulties, a young child may tend to dislike wearing footwear having laces and, as a result, will not desire to learn the essential skills associated with wearing such footwear.
Parents desire that their children learn to properly put on, lace and tie the laces of their footwear in a bowknot not only so the children are able to put on their own footwear, and in particular footwear having laces, and thus save time for their parents, but for a variety of other reasons which include fostering the development of motor skills and dexterity, and teaching the independence and self-confidence which comes with mastering a series of complex tasks. Thus, parents currently desire a comprehensive learning and educational aid which will assist their children with all of the difficult tasks associated with the wearing of footwear, and especially footwear having laces. Obviously, it would be preferable if such an educational or learning aid not only effectively and easily teaches all of the necessary skills involved in wearing footwear, but if it does so in a manner which will be fun for children. This is accomplished in a preferred embodiment of the present invention through the use of fanciful, aesthetic designs and colors intended to be pleasing to a child as well as an adult. Further, the overall appearance of the footwear of this invention when worn on young children's feet is no different than ordinary children's footwear.
Prior art devices have failed to provide the benefits of the present invention. In particular, such devices have typically addressed the aforementioned child development and educational skills, if at all, only on a piecemeal basis. The consequence of this failure is manifest by the structural design of such footwear which employs incompatible devices to teach children the entire range of skills required for wearing footwear, and particularly footwear having laces.
For example, Cariffe, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 3,258,858, discloses a pair of shoes having a design which is intended to help children properly align the shoes for wearing on the correct feet. One-half of the design is visibly located on the insole of the left shoe, and the other half of the design is visibly located on the insole of the right shoe. Juxtaposing the design halves to form a complete picture will cause the shoes to be aligned for wearing with the right shoe on the right side and the left shoe on the left side. However, once a child has inserted his feet into the shoes, the designs will no longer be visible and, hence, there will no longer be any way for the child to determine whether the shoes are on the proper feet. Moreover, the approach taken by this patentee still requires the child to have a sufficient understanding of the concepts of symmetry and directionality to be able to mentally joint the design halves to form a complete picture.
Other prior art devices have addressed either the lacing of shoes or tying of shoelaces, but not both. Thus, in Hume, U.S. Pat. No. 2,313,874, the tips of shoelaces are color-coded to correspond with color-coded eyelets to facilitate the lacing of the shoe and to make sure that each lace is placed through each color-coded and corresponding eyelet in the proper order. This disclosure fails to teach children how to differentiate the right shoe from the left shoe and additionally does not attempt to teach children how to tie the shoelaces into a single bowknot once the shoes have been properly laced.
In Eisel, U.S. Pat. No. 2,385,197, an educational lacing toy employing a bi-colored shoelace is intended to teach very young children how to lace a pair of shoes by increasing their interests in such skills. However, Eisel increases the interests of children in lacing in the context of a device that either a child or his or her parent can easily restore after it has been unlaced. Eisel thus fails to provide a comprehensive system for teaching children all of the skills associated with wearing footwear having laces. The fact that the device of Eisel is in the form of a toy detracts from its usefulness, since a young child may not be capable of readily switching from lacing this toy to lacing actual footwear. Such child may thus encounter difficulties lacing actual footwear when he has learned this skill specifically on a model or toy as provided in Eisel.
In Bandar, U.S. Pat. No. 4,342,557, a device for tying a double-knotted bow is disclosed which is used as an educational toy for teaching young children how to tie with "bunny-ears" a double-knotted bow with their shoelaces. This device, which is wholly separate from the footwear with which it is to be used, consists of a plastic member having four linearly arranged apertures. After an overhand knot has been formed in the shoelace, the device is placed over the shoe and each end of the shoelace is threaded upwardly and then downwardly through an innermost aperture to form a pair of loops, and then upwardly through an outermost aperture to be held in the proper orientation. The two loops which are thus formed are held in place, and can then be more easily tied by a child. Thereafter, the plastic member is completely removed from the footwear. This device is impractical because of the need to keep the plastic member close at hand. Thus, if a child does not have or cannot locate the plastic member, he cannot use it to assist him in tying his laces. Furthermore, for the device to be effective, children must carry the plastic member at all times in the event that their laces become untied or they wish to take off their footwear and subsequently put the footwear back on. Additionally, the removal of the plastic member from the laces may loosen or even undo the bowknot that has just been tied.
Although each of these above-identified toys and devices of the prior art are aimed at young children who are learning to put on, tie or lace footwear, these devices still require such children to have already achieved a sufficient degree of intellectual sophistication that they are able to either appreciate the subtle visible differences between a left item of footwear and a right item of footwear or understand the concepts of symmetry and directionality. Hence, the children's footwear industry has generally failed to provide an adequate and comprehensive solution to assist children without such intellectual capabilities in all of the necessary skills associated with learning to wear footwear, particularly laced footwear. These skills include putting the items of footwear on the proper foot, lacing the footwear, and tying the laces to form a single bowknot.
There therefore exists a need for a comprehensive device which will teach young children all of those skills attendant to properly putting on, lacing and tying footwear. Preferably, the features required to teach all of these skills can be incorporated in a single pair of footwear so that the skills can be learned in the context in which they will be used. Even more preferably, these features will be incorporated in the pair of footwear in an inconspicuous manner so that the footwear will still be fashionable and capable of being worn on a daily basis, thereby not placing an additional economic burden on parents.